


The Surprises

by wisdomeagle



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: A picture of the author's id, Birthday, Community: femslash_minis, Dancing, F/F, Mommy Kink, Season/Series 03, Wine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-02-20
Updated: 2006-02-20
Packaged: 2018-04-17 22:38:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4683935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wisdomeagle/pseuds/wisdomeagle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Faith's birthday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Surprises

**Author's Note:**

> Written to the prompt: Faith/Joyce, wine, sunshine, and no lipstick.

"Well, I still think it was a nice idea."

"Yeah," Faith says, picking at her spaghetti. "It was real thoughtful, Joyce."

"I'm sorry about..."

"Don't be sorry about her. She's not your fault. Can't predict how a kid'll turn out, ya know?"

"Well, happy birthday, anyhow," Joyce says, raising her glass.

Faith clinks her Coke with Joyce's wine. "Yeah. Thanks."

Joyce puts her wine down. She looks older when she gets serious. The lines deepen and the makeup fades and Faith can believe she was born to be someone's mother. "I want you to promise me something."

"Yeah?" She arches an eyebrow the best she knows how, and Joyce shies back, sighs. 

"Never mind."

"What?"

"No. It's nothing."

"What do you want?"

"I just want you to be happy."

"Why me?"

"You're -- you're good for her."

"For B?"

"Buffy seems different when you're around. And..."

"And you want me to be Slayer number one so she can go have a life."

Joyce takes a slow sip of wine and thinks. "Maybe. Maybe at first."

"But then you got to know me as a person and...?"

"And I feel sorry for you," Joyce says.

She can feel her whole body go tense at that. "Great."

"And I like you."

"Yeah?"

"Yes. Very much."

"Cool." She grins. "You know, I think I'm done with my spaghetti. You wanna go someplace else?"

"Like?"

"Like dancing," Faith says.

"Are you asking--?"

"Damn straight."

"I'll -- I'll just pay, then."

"You do that."

++

Faith can forget like no one else. She's mastered it. The music erases the memory of Joyce and the dinner she bought, erases the extra year of life today signifies, erases Buffy's smile and everything but the greasepaint and the music. She's not even dancing, not in any classic sense, not any moves anyone could recognize. A strobe flashes somewhere, some chick's perfume gets in her nose, beer sloshes onto her shoulder, confetti falls from nowhere. One two punch, the end.

She loves the grind of bodies but she loves this more, the way her skin feels covered in other people's sweat, the way her face hardens into a half-sneer of bliss, the way the music feels in the balls of her feet, instruments silenced in the agony of noise. She feels like dancing.

When the snare stings, she remembers Joyce, and she finds her face too easily. She hasn't stopped smiling but hasn't moved from the door; she's holding a glass she got from somewhere but isn't drinking. She's so different from the crowd Faith would see her even if she weren't looking.

She slips under someone's arm, twines between the legs of two teenagers making out, finds herself half-trotting by the time she trips into Joyce's arms and knocks the glass out of her hands and licks the smile off her lips.

"Hey," she says. "Come dance with me?"

"Oh -- oh."

Joyce moves awkwardly in her arms, struggling against the beat and how can someone like this produce so graceful a daughter, when she's awkward gangly arms and legs and breasts and none of it seems to move right against Faith's body but she still feels it, the burning like gin in her belly that means -- 

" _Joyce_ ," she says, like she's doing it on purpose, like Buffy's mom is seducing her. " _Joyce_?" There's surprise in that, and something else. "You should be careful with those," she says, and points somewhere towards Joyce's legs.

"You'd be surprised," Joyce mutters.

Faith whirls away from her and back, quick as the beat and twice as sexy. "Try me."

Joyce's hand touches her waist, says, "Dance with me," and turns Faith slowly, against the music and against the crowd, sinking her into a back-bend and lifting her for a kiss that's delicate and itchy on Faith's lips.

++

Joyce's bed is big and snazzy, covered in a crazy quilt of blue and yellow that makes Faith's eyes pop as she follows the zig-zag pattern from block to block. "Nice blanket."

"Thank you." Joyce sits gingerly on her bed's edge. "Are you sure?"

"Damn sure," Faith says, and jumps into Joyce's lap, knocking her over. Joyce lets out a little gasp of unaroused surprise. Too much. Gotta be --

"Careful," Joyce tells her.

There's not much that can surprise Faith at this point. She's been fighting vampires and demons for six months, and then Kakistos... there's not much that can shock her. There never has been. But that stupid crazy quilt, with the yellows and the blues that make her look twice, like Joyce's skin, not pretty, not a disguise -- she doesn't look young for her age but she makes Faith look at her, drink her in.

The night's like that. The quietest things, the way Joyce sighs, the way her fingers slip on Faith's cunt and the way she can't seem to find her clit and doesn't know which way's up and doesn't know how to make Faith come but wants to try. The night's like that. The night's forgetting how young Faith is, how old she turned, how she likes to dance, and remembering, discovering, the way they dance together.

When Joyce comes, she screams so silently Faith's ears throb, and then says, "Thank you." It's so strange Faith never thought of it till now, and so right that she gasps it when she finally comes herself, rubbing hard against Joyce's thigh. 

" _Thank you_ ," like a birthday gift, a glass of wine, a throbbing drum, a crazy quilt, a blue and yellow sunrise.


End file.
